


Get Out Alive

by softlyforgotten



Category: My So-Called Life
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/pseuds/softlyforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angela Chase was eighteen. She was feeling pretty good about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Out Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lizwontcry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizwontcry/gifts).



> Thank you very much to E for the beta.

> This life has been a test. If this had been an actual life, you would have received instructions on where to go and what to do.
> 
> \-- Angela Chase

"Forgiving people is so easy when you're fifteen, though," Angela said, lying on her back on Sharon's bed. Sharon had decorated her walls with pictures of a movie star whose name Angela didn't know and a calendar that had the due dates of all her assignments and exams marked in red pen with a lot of exclamation marks. Her bedspread was pink, and so was Sharon's roommate's, and Angela wondered if they had, like, coordinated or something. If that was something you did, when you were rushing together and running for some secret campaign to be the most popular freshman on campus. She wondered if it was required or just recommended.

"But it always seems so much worse, too," Sharon countered. "Like. It's never as bad after."

"Yeah, but it's expected," Angela said. "There's always these big blow-outs and then reunions and it's always, like, a huge deal, and you cry and laugh and it just feels kind of pointless afterwards, you know? But at the time, it's. The whole point. Or the only one."

"Hmm," Sharon said. She was putting her make-up on, leaning in and sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, and she was better at putting make-up on these days, knew what looked good and subtle and could do it fast and unthinking, but Angela loved that she still had to stick her tongue out. She wanted to get up and hug Sharon and hold her close and tell her to never, ever stop doing it, or it would break Angela's heart.

"I don't know if that's right," Angela said. "I don't know if it's the point or not. But whatever it is, you _do_ it because you're fifteen and you have to, and so now, it's kind of like, um. Fuck you. You know?"

"Angela," Sharon said, turning and staring, "are you skipping out on my party?"

"No!" Angela sat up. "No. Are you _listening_?"

"I'm listening to you have a big existential crisis over Rayanne Graff," Sharon said. "Which is cool, I'm totally supportive of your need to do so, but you RSVPed, Angela. You promised. I have _budgeted_ for you, okay, and if you decide not to go all of a sudden—"

"I'm going, I'm going," Angela said. "God. I was just _talking_."

Angela didn't know, secretly, why Sharon had to make such a big deal about this party, anyway. They were meant to have a high school reunion in ten years, not a year after senior year when everyone was back in town for the holidays and things felt too tender and bruised still. Angela wrote home to Danielle about how faraway high school felt, how she didn't have to think about it anymore, how everyone at college was cool and mature and so over all the tiny things that had felt important, and then Angela lay awake at night and seethed about Rayanne Graff, and wouldn't let Rickie talk about her on the phone when he called.

She was angry at Jordan too, of course. But being angry at Jordan had always had something faintly satisfying about it, something martyred. Being angry at Jordan was a way to care for him and prove it, because she didn't let him get away with the shit everyone else did. It was better not to think about Jordan at all, better to stare up at the ceiling and clench her hands into fists and whisper, "I was your best friend," just to try out how it sounded on her lips.

"What?" Sharon said.

"Oh my god," Angela said, "I thought I was going to get better at this stuff."

"Angela Chase," Sharon said, "you are coming to my party."

\---

" _I_ thought you and Rayanne made up," Danielle said, eyeing Angela wisely over a cup of coffee. Danielle had started drinking coffee around the time she had gotten her first _Boy_ friend, which was how Angela's mom pronounced it, capital firmly in place. Danielle wore eyeliner and lipstick and pulled it off, unlike Angela at her age, and Angela had been secretly relieved when she had tasted Danielle's coffee and realised she had it milky with four sugars.

"It was more like we agreed to share Rickie," Angela said. "We tolerated each other, I guess. But it wasn't ever – it wasn't ever like it was before."

"But you miss her," Danielle said, like it was obvious.

"No!" Angela stared at her. "Danielle, you're missing the point."

"I am not," Danielle said, giving her an arch look.

"That is totally the opposite of what I've been talking about all along." Angela threw her hands up in exasperation. "Are you even listening?"

"I'm interpreting," Danielle said. "Are you in love with Jordan Catalano?"

"I did not even mention Jordan Catalano!" Angela said. "I liked him when I was _fifteen_ —"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Danielle said, folding her arms. "You can be in love when you're fifteen. You can be in love younger than that."

"Oh my god." Angela shook her head. "You're so naïve."

Danielle scoffed. "Tell that to your big freak out over Rayanne Graff and Jordan Catalano."

"You don't have to say their full names!" Angela shouted, as Danielle picked up her coffee and sauntered out of the room with a world-weary air. "I know who they _are_!"

"Inside voices, honey," her mom said mildly, coming in behind her. "And Sharon called. She wanted to make sure you were coming to help set up for her party tonight. You will, won't you, Angela?"

Angela dropped her head onto her arms and groaned.

\---

Rickie was already there when Angela got there, and Angela would never not find that weird, the friendship that had somehow sprung up between him and Sharon. Sharon said it was because they were the only ones in their set of friends who didn't find Jordan Catalano attractive, and when Angela had brought up Brian, Sharon had just given her a rather un-Sharon-like smirk and Angela actually did not want to know. She thought about it for a moment but there were too many confusing things there, not to mention a letter Angela still kept folded carefully in a shoebox under her bed.

"Angela!" Rickie said, and seized her in a hug. Angela kissed his cheek and tried not to hold on too long. The great thing about college, she thought, was that she didn't have to feel desperate about her friends anymore, like they were the only things keeping her from, like, falling off the edge of the world.

Angela was eighteen. She was feeling pretty good about it.

"It's been so long," he said, staring at her, clutching her hands to his chest.

"Three months," she agreed, but she pulled him in close to hug him again anyway. Three months felt somehow unfair, too small an amount of time.

"How's Berkeley?" he demanded. "It's so far away, gosh. It's good though, isn't it? You're happy?"

Angela laughed. "I talk to you on the phone every week," she said. "Practically every day. You know it's good."

"Yeah," Rickie said, grinning at her. "How's that boy, you know?" His smile turned sly. "James."

"Nice," Angela said, shrugging, because James was. She thought that maybe James was what a grown up crush felt like, all fondness and warmth and also feeling weirdly flattered. It _was_ nice.

Sharon was starting to look interested, though, and Sharon still wasn't the person Angela wanted giving advice on her love life. "Later," she told Rickie, and he nodded and swept her away to help him set out plates of party food.

Apart from the new bottles of alcohol – "My mom doesn't get back from her conference until Monday," Sharon explained – it felt a lot like preparing for a party when they were much younger, setting out bowls of chips and M&Ms. Angela perched on a table and swung her legs beneath her, sharing a handful of Gummy Bears with Rickie, her hand open between them.

Sharon's boyfriend arrived early on, some boy who was new and yet managed to look exactly like every single one of Sharon's previous boyfriends, and he was the beginning of a flood of people. Angela found herself caught up in endless shocked hellos, as though it was impossible to believe that everyone still existed, that everyone was still _here_ after a whole three months, God. She wanted to roll her eyes and walk away, maybe try smoking in Sharon's bathroom. She still didn't like the taste of smoke, though, which was a little embarrassing at college, but more embarrassing here, where everyone expected her to be exactly the same and Susie – Sue, now – McDonald from her Biology AP class raised her eyebrows when Angela cursed.

She found herself hiding out by the stereo with a homemade hot dog that someone had shoved into her hand at some point. Angela was vegetarian, at the moment, but they hadn't listened to her say so, and now she wondered idly where the trash was and whether she could be bothered getting up to find it.

"Uh, hello," someone said, with a faintly affronted air.

Angela looked up and rubbed her eyes. "Hi, Brian." He looked nervous and uncomfortable and Angela caught his gaze properly and said, "Do you want my hot dog?"

"Why don't you want it?" Brian asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I'm a vegetarian."

"Oh?" Brian still held himself prickly tall, shoulders hunched in on himself, hands shoved defensively in the pockets of his jeans. "Because of like, dietary reasons? Or is it some sort of moral, uh, ideological position—"

"Why do you have to say it like that?" Angela demanded. " _Some sort of_ , why do you have to make it so condescending?"

"I just meant—"

"Is it so weird? Like, yes, the meat industry is – I can't support it, so yes, it's a moral _and_ ideological position and, and you can have the goddamn hot dog, if you want."

"Why did you take it, if you're a vegetarian?"

Angela sighed. "Brian. Like. Do we have to keep making it into a – some sort of—"

"I'm a vegetarian, too," Brian said quickly, looking away, and Angela stared at him. After a moment, though, she started to laugh, and Brian laughed too, sheepish, ducking his head. He took the hot dog and sidled away for a moment, and she saw him dump it somewhere and then force his way back through the crowd to her.

"How are you, Brian?" Angela asked, and Brian told her about his classes at Harvard, and how his dorm mate had seen every original episode of Star Trek and kept trying to make Brian watch the whole series with him, and how Brian had found it was actually better if you got stoned first.

Angela laughed, and gasped, " _Brian_ ," and Brian looked embarrassed and pleased at the same time.

It was pretty dumb, to spend Sharon's big exciting party stuck in a corner with Brian Krakow, when she should have been showing off how grown up and mature and wonderful she was to all the people she'd known when she was fifteen and sixteen and seventeen – should have been proving how much better she was, but at the same time, the idea of it made her tired. Brian didn't seem to expect much of anything from her, except that she would be rude or cutting to him at some point, and when Angela continually didn't, he got weirdly comforting.

"You know the strange thing," he said, at one point. "Like, in my first week at Harvard, and it was – I was nervous, but everything was so amazing and exciting and there were people who, uh, I liked and they liked me everywhere, and it was – it was just really great. And I wasn't homesick at all."

"I know the feeling," Angela said, because she did.

"Yeah," Brian said. "That was a good week. I, um, I really liked it, but, that first week, at the end of it, I got up really late one night because I couldn't sleep, and I got dressed and snuck out and then I went over to the next building and almost knocked on the door of this random dorm because I thought – somehow I thought you would be there."

Angela blinked. "What?"

"Like, that's how it would be, that's how it's always been," Brian said, not looking at her. "That somehow you would just follow me around for the rest of my life to be my next door neighbour."

Angela drew in a breath, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

"I was pretty tired," Brian said quickly, defensively, and Angela patted the edge of the table she was sitting on and sidled over, so Brian could sit down to. His shoulder pressed warm against hers.

\---

A little after ten, Sharon said, " _Finally_ ," and Angela's head snapped up.

"We had to get all our equipment, _Sharon_ ," Rayanne said, voice low and warm as ever, caught on a laugh, like she wasn't yet sure whether that was acceptable. "And then Amber had a crisis over another man, and Jordan had to flirt with her for a full half hour before she was recovered—"

"That's so gross," Sharon said.

"Jordan is a giving and wonderful soul," Rayanne declared. "Aren't you, Catalano? Consoler of mothers in distress, fixer-upper of cars in a jam, guitarist of my heart—"

Jordan shouldered in through the doorway behind her, clutching a guitar case and an amp, one in each hand. Angela thought it was absolutely ridiculous that someone would wear the same clothes they had when they were sixteen, and watched the flex of his muscles under his flannel shirt, his forearms taut and strong.

"But we're here now, Sharon," Rayanne was saying, as though she was giving a benediction. "We have returned. So you can turn that crap off the stereo and be prepared to be carried away on a wave of wonderous—"

Angela thought: _look away, look away_ , but she kept staring and eventually Rayanne looked up and caught her gaze and actually faltered to a halt, her red mouth still open and half-smiling.

"Angela?" Brian said uncertainly, and Angela turned to look at him.

"Since when have Jordan and Rayanne played in a band together?" she asked.

Brian looked confused. "Since the beginning of the summer," he said. "You were still here, remember? When they moved in together."

Angela drew in a sharp breath. "I don't think I was paying attention," she said.

"Not, like, as a couple or whatever," Brian clarified, after a minute. "Just, like, you know. Roommates. They both needed a place to go. Or stay."

Angela couldn't quite manage to look away.

\---

Somewhere along the way, Rayanne had lost her stage fright without Angela noticing. Maybe in the play she hadn't gone to, despite Rickie's pleas, or the ones that followed through the rest of high school. Angela was tense almost for Rayanne as well as because of her, when she and Jordan set up at the front of the living room, under the window, both perched on stools with Jordan holding his battered acoustic and Rayanne tapping a tambourine idly against her thigh, but Rayanne didn't seem nervous at all. She half-sang and half-spoke, crooning huskily into the microphone, breaking off to laugh and exclaim over things mid-song until Angela couldn't tell if it was deliberate or not.

Rayanne seemed unselfconscious and beautiful, up there, and it took Angela a long time to realise that Jordan was staring at her.

When she looked at him, though, Jordan almost startled, gaze darting away before he looked back at her, brow furrowed. He looked as confused as he did in class, and Angela thought she was over this, she was done being a child. She sidled out of the crowded room, and proceeded to get very drunk.

\---

At some point, she found herself sitting on the porch outside, her forehead pressed to the wood rail, gulping in deep breaths of cold air and trying to convince herself not to throw up. It would be a bad idea to throw up now, she thought. She wondered if she could convince Sharon to let her stay here tonight, or find Rickie to take her home.

She wanted to sleep for a very long time. She didn't want to see her mom.

"Angela?"

It was Jordan's voice, shy and unsure. Jordan spoke less with every year. Sometimes Angela thought he would run out of words entirely.

"Are you okay?"

"I, like." Angela didn't want to talk like this. She drew in another breath, deep and shuddering. "I need a minute."

"Right." That was his cue to leave, and she knew it, and she was fairly sure even Jordan wouldn't miss that, but she sat and waited anyway.

After a long minute, he came and sat down next to her. Their shoulders bumped. Angela hunched herself away.

"Your jacket, it's." Angela didn't help him out. After a moment, Jordan cleared his throat and said, "I guess it's pretty warm in California, huh?"

"Mm."

"You should," he said, and then he draped something around her shoulders, and Angela drew in a surprised breath. It was that coat, that big, stupid coat, and what kind of kid, she thought even as she slipped her hands through the sleeves, what kind of dumb, immature _child_ didn't replace the clothes they'd worn for three years now. God, Jordan Catalano really stood for everything Angela didn't want to be. Everything she'd thought Rayanne hadn't wanted to be, too: fucking _stuck_.

"Thank you," she said after a moment, stiffly, because for some reason Jordan did and always had brought out her mother's drilling about good manners.

"I think," Jordan said, slowly, "it would be easy to forget once you've gone. But you shouldn't sit out in the cold or – you'll be sick for Christmas."

Angela looked at him. His eyes were very blue.

"Sharon said you and Rayanne are living together," she said.

Jordan nodded.

"Well, that's." Angela scoffed a little.

"Do you want to come see?" Jordan asked, and Angela startled a little, looking back at him. With anyone else it would be a line; with Jordan, it could very well be a line, but she supposed he'd have to learn some, first.

"Yeah," she said, and let him help her up.

\---

Jordan and Rayanne's place was tiny, with bare wooden floorboards and a little kitchen counter that was in the same room as the living area. There were no bedrooms, but there was a chest of drawers shoved into the corner and two separate mattresses dumped on the floor, along with a tiny, filthy couch. There was a little door leading into an equally tiny bathroom, and Angela stared around at the dirty walls and thought of her clean, warm dorm room, and didn't say anything.

Jordan ran his hand through his hair, apparently unselfconscious. "You want something to drink?"

Angela shook her head. It felt heavy. "I want to sleep," she said, surprising herself with the truth.

Jordan said, "You can crash on the couch, if you like."

"Yeah," Angela said. "Please."

Jordan nodded, and Angela went into the bathroom to splash her face with water and brush her teeth with toothpaste and her finger. She told her reflection that she was drunk, and then stared at herself for a while before she went back into the other room.

Jordan had put out a blanket, but no pillow. He was leaning out the tiny window and smoking.

Angela took off his jacket, feeling conscious of it, and left it on the kitchen counter. She took off her shoes, and her sweater, and curled up under the blanket.

It was cold in the room, but she was sad and tired. She didn't think it would be hard to fall asleep, even when Jordan passed by quietly and touched her hair, his hand hot and firm in the night.

She was, despite herself, comforted, falling asleep, by the reassurance that he knew she was there.

\---

 

"Don't think I'm not grateful to you, Jordan. It's – of course it's a surprise and a pleasure, to wake up and find Angela _Chase_ on my couch. The tragic thing is that you've brought her home like a puppy trying to please its owner with a dead rat—"

"Angela's not a dead rat."

"It's a metaphor," Rayanne said. Angela could hear something frying, too, something that smelled like breakfast.

"Well, I wasn't only trying to please you."

"Jordan, you're missing the point."

"That's what Rickie said," Jordan told her. "He said that both of you were missing the point, and me too, probably, and that you were frightened of her."

"I am not frightened of Angela _Chase_ ," Rayanne said.

"Okay," Jordan said, and Angela heard something soft and familiar and when she sat up they were kissing – or rather, Rayanne had pushed Jordan back against the counter and was trying to press in closer to him, and Jordan was holding onto her shoulders and touching her hair just softly, keeping her back, keeping it gentle.

"Can I have some eggs?" Angela asked.

Jordan stepped back. His mouth was red and a little wet but he didn't bother to wipe it.

"Yeah," he said. "We don't have any bread for toast, though."

"Okay."

Rayanne wasn't looking at her, so Angela didn't look at Rayanne, either.

"You're home for the holidays, Angela," Rayanne said, without turning around, as though she was announcing some grand fact that Angela might not have realised. Angela wasn't a little girl anymore, though, and she didn't think Rayanne Graff had invented the world.

She kept her voice cool and collected. "Yes."

"How long are you staying?"

"Not for long," Angela said. "A couple of weeks."

She stared at the back of Rayanne's head. She was hungry to see Rayanne's face, she realised now, hungry in the same way she spent all her time at school practicing the endless speeches she could have made, pretending she was fifteen again and could find some way of making everything about Rayanne bigger and more memorable. She didn't want to fix it, she didn't think. She just wanted Rayanne's attention.

"I guess you won't ever stay for long again," Rayanne said, bitterly.

Angela shrugged.

Jordan looked at Rayanne, and then at Angela, and Angela looked back at him. There was a battered paperback book on the counter, a copy of _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ , and Angela looked at the possessive hand Jordan had near it and wondered who it belonged to.

"Sharon said you two weren't together," Angela said, without quite meaning to.

Jordan immediately managed to look sixteen and sullen and sheepish again, turning away to the eggs.

"Sharon's right," Rayanne said.

"Okay." Angela pulled her hand through her hair, teasing out the knots. She had a headache, but it felt dull and very far away. She stood up, found her shoes and her jacket. "I should head home."

"You don't want eggs?" Jordan looked up quickly.

"No, I think maybe I should just… head out." Angela made a vague gesture. "Like. I've got plans, or whatever."

"With Rickie?" Rayanne bristled.

"Maybe."

"Of course I suppose you've got the right to him," Rayanne said. "Because of something I did when I was fifteen—"

"You're still doing it, apparently," Angela said lightly, and neither of them said anything. Angela looked at Rayanne's hair, remembered the way Jordan had tangled a hair in it, not compulsively or desperately, just like he was hanging on, keeping her there. Angela wondered if Rayanne had changed her shampoo at all in the years between them, or if she still smelled the same.

She drew in a breath and turned for the door, but by the time she made it there, Jordan was leaning against it, hands in his pockets, staring at his feet.

"Jordan," Angela said. She thought it was maybe the first time she had said his name, and wondered whether he noticed, too.

"I just think, like." It came out so low Angela had to strain to hear. "I just think you should stay."

"Please let me out," Angela said, and it came out as stubborn and unwilling as Jordan's sprawl against the door. Angela looked at him, the way his shoulders hunched, the tilt of his hips. He was slouched against the door, really, more than anything, and Angela was reminded again of all the reasons it hadn't worked, and she looked at Rayanne and thought of something they had said, before everything.

"The conversation isn't so great, to be honest," Rayanne said, and for a moment Angela stared, and then she got it and sat down and started laughing. She was too far away from the couch, so she ended up cross-legged on one of the mattresses, holding her head in her hands and laughing helplessly into her palms. She felt fifteen again, giddy and stupid, and then she thought this wasn't fifteen at all, this was just them, what they did to her.

"Angela?" Jordan still sounded so tentative. "Do you want some eggs?"

"She doesn't want eggs," Rayanne said. She came and sat down next to Angela. They weren't touching. Out of the corner of her eye, Angela could see Rayanne's hands clenched together, her nails digging into her palms.

Jordan sat on her other side.

"What's your band called?" Angela asked.

"Waiting For Angela Chase," Rayanne said, breathless like she was racing to the end of a good joke, but her laughter was a nervous bark.

Jordan sighed, sounding put-upon. "It's called Glitter Dog."

"What?"

"We each wrote a bunch of words down," Rayanne said, "and then pulled one each out of a hat."

"Whose word was dog?" Angela asked, and Rayanne looked at her. Angela felt a smile quirk in the corner of her mouth.

Jordan said, "We're going on tour soon."

"Yeah?"

"Tino's lending us his van."

"Well," Angela said. "Well, cool. That's good."

Their shoulders bumped. Angela breathed in, and out, and in, and thought about the brief semester where she hadn't been able to believe she'd be able to grow up without either of them. It felt frighteningly real, now. Like a prophecy, or something her mom had warned her about.

"Maybe," Angela said, slowly, "—I mean, I didn't really watch your show last night. So maybe you guys could play me some of your, like. Your songs. Or whatever."

"Oh," Jordan said. "Yeah. We can do that."

"I mean, if you're going to hang out with Rickie," Rayanne began, brash and fast, almost tripping over her own words.

"I can hang out with Rickie a while later," Angela said. "And, you know. I – it's Christmas break, but I'll be back for summer."

Rayanne reached out and wrapped her hand around Angela's wrist, holding on hard enough it was almost painful. Angela tilted against Jordan's side. She looked down, and her hair fell around her face, freshly red again, staining everything warm and coloured and just a little closer to summer, and being nineteen.


End file.
